Post-ADHC Hearing Set

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The California Department of Health Care Services has been updating its transition plan to make sure patients in the adult day health care program have somewhere to go when those services officially end on Dec. 1.

DHCS hopes its new plan will help the roughly 35,000 Californians enrolled in about 300 ADHC centers across the state.

“Working with the Department of Aging, the Department of Social Services and the Department of Developmental Services, DHCS has created a multi-faceted approach to provide comprehensive health risk assessments, care coordination, case management and appropriate ongoing services to former ADHC clients,” according to the new transition plan.

The new transition plan outlines the following steps:

Enroll almost all ADHC recipients in a Medi-Cal managed care program, with a target goal of Oct. 1.

Send out an informational letter at the end of August, notifying ADHC participants of the Dec. 1 end date for ADHC services, with an enrollment packet for a managed care plan.

Managed care plans also are expected to provide case management, and possibly facilitate expansion of In-Home Supportive Services hours. DHCS also plans to develop financial incentives and penalties, in order to keep ADHC patients out of nursing homes.

About 10% of current ADHC patients already are enrolled in some form of managed care plan, according to the DHCS transition plan. The state estimates about 20% of current ADHC patients — up to 7,000 of them — may qualify for the PACE or SCAN programs designed to care for frail or at-risk patients. (Those are acronyms for the Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly and the Senior Care Action Network.)

Meanwhile, a legislative hearing has been set for early next week, on Aug. 16, the day after legislators return from recess, according to Mariko Yamada (D-Davis), chair of the Committee on Aging and Long-Term Care. The hearing will focus on the gubernatorial veto of AB 96 by Bob Blumenfield (D-Woodland Hills), which would have established the Keeping Adults Free from Institutions program, and what it will actually mean to close hundreds of ADHC centers, Yamada said.

“Because once this program goes, once you close the infrastructure of it, all of that will be difficult to replicate,” Yamada said. “We don’t have a parallel system. It is what I call the yin and yang of care, it’s the medical care hybrid.”

As the state’s population ages and Baby Boomers become seniors, the state will need more adult day centers, not fewer, according to Yamada.

“This daytime care model is as important to a frail adult as child care is to children in a family,” Yamada said. “I just hope we donât see anyone die soon from this.”

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Post-ADHC Hearing Set

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